Kitty Bennet's Diary (Pride and Prejudice Chronicles) (24 page)

Lance did not argue.  But neither did he look convinced.

“I mean it,” I said.  His chest was still bare, save for the bandages.  Since he had lain down, I had been staring at the assortment of scars that marked his skin.  He had not been lying, either, that night at Vauxhall; he really had known injuries far more severe than a bruised hand.  A long, pale scar that must have been left by a sabre cut ran across his collarbone.  Another scar—this one fresher, the skin still puckered and red—criss-crossed one shoulder.

I touched one of the scars lightly, with just the tips of my fingers.  “You have been in combat.  You must have seen sights—terrible things—just as Mark and your brother did.  How do you get over that?  How do you bear the memories?”

It occurred to me afterwards that I have myself a rather desperate wish to know the answer to that question.  But in the moment, I was not even considering that.  I was thinking only of Lance, of how much I wished him to believe that he was in no way to blame for his brother’s death.

I felt his chest rise and fall as he drew breath, and then at last he said, “One does not get over it.  I do not believe anyone does.  But I suppose … I suppose you reach a point where you accept that it will always be with you—the memories of all that you have done, all that you have seen.  And that however heavy it may be, the weight of the memories is yours alone to carry—and so somehow you do, because you must.”  He stopped, forcing a brief smile.  “Or at least, that is as far as I have come.” 

I slipped my hand into his.  “Well, your brother would have known that, too.  He would have had his own weight of memories to carry.  And that is how I know that he would never willingly have added to yours by intentionally taking his life.  He would never have wished to cause you that pain.”

Lance stared at me a long moment, his eyes very blue in his white, exhausted face.  And then at last he let out a long, unsteady breath.  “I … thank you, Miss Bennet.  I hope you may be right.”

I knew I ought to tell him to close his eyes and sleep if he could.  But I could not stop myself from venturing one question more.

“Why did you become a clergyman?” I asked.

Lance’s head turned restlessly against the pillow, his eyes once more drifting half shut.  “I wanted … I felt as though I ought to make my life matter, somehow.  Since I was the one who had lived.  As if I owed it to Percy to … to accomplish something real, I suppose.  I had my university degree already.  It was speedily arranged that I should be ordained.”

His words had been gradually slowing.  But he was not quite asleep after all.  He opened his eyes once more and looked at me, his gaze startlingly blue and pain-filled.  “But I am not sure how much of a clergyman I can be.  I—”  He stopped and exhaled hard, running a hand through his hair.  “I do charity work here in the East End.  I hope I accomplish some good.  But that is why I have not even tried to find a position as vicar of my own parish.  The thought of standing up in church every Sunday and preaching a sermon … what can I tell others about faith, when at times I seem to have so little of my own?”

He looked younger—and suddenly vulnerable, lying there and looking up at me.  His mouth was bracketed by lines of pain, and his fair hair was rumpled, one lock falling down over his forehead.

Before I could stop myself, I reached to smooth it back, brushing my fingertips lightly against his brow.  “You would make a splendid vicar.  I would a hundred times prefer to hear a sermon from someone who has doubted than from some smug sycophant who has never even considered the questions of his own faith enough to have doubts.  And besides—isn’t there that story in the Bible about Doubting Thomas?  Jesus let Thomas touch His wounds to prove He was who He claimed to be.  He did not say,
Oh for Heaven’s sake, Thomas, just take my word for it
.”

Lance let out a smothered burst of a laugh at that, still looking up at me.  “Miss Bennet, I confess I would greatly enjoy hearing you debate with some of the theology tutors at Oxford.”

But then his voice changed.  “You are extraordinary, you know.”

My heart thumped against my ribs.  But I tried to speak lightly, pulling my hand away from his.  “Now I
know
I was too liberal with the laudanum.”

“No.”  Lance shook his head.  And he kept hold of my hand.  “I mean it.  You are extraordinary.  To have come through all you have—to have seen so much pain, and yet never to have lost your strength … your compassion … your ability to laugh.”  His eyes had trouble focusing.  But he raised his free hand and touched my cheek.  His fingertips were warm and a little rough against my skin—and the touch seemed to echo through my every nerve.  “You are … amazing.  I thought from the first moment I met you that I had never known any other girl quite like you.  You … make me believe.”

The last words trailed off in a sigh of breath as his eyelids finally drifted closed.  I waited, frozen in place, my hand still in his.  But he was asleep at last, his breathing deep and even, the lines of pain and weariness smoothed from his face.

My chest ached—it still aches, as I am writing this—as though I had swallowed broken glass.  I shut my eyes.  And then forced myself to gently detach my fingers from Lance’s and ease slowly off the edge of the bed.  I pulled the blankets up over him—and he sighed again and shifted in his sleep.  I bent—I could not help it—and touched my lips to his cheek.

But then I did not let myself look at him again as I went back to the outer room and found paper and pen on the small writing desk I had seen there.

I have no idea how long I sat there, staring at the blank sheet of paper before me and struggling with what I should write.  Long enough that I began to fear the laudanum would wear off, and Lance would wake and find me still there, trying to think what to say.

It was that fear that finally propelled me to scrawl—without allowing myself to pause for thought: 

Mr. Dalton—

Please do not write to me or come to see me.  I cannot see you again. 

Kitty Bennet

I folded the note, propped it up where he would see it, and went to tell Mrs. Poole that I was leaving.  I asked her to look in on Lance periodically to see that he was all right, and that the wound had not turned to fever.

Then I walked all the way back to my aunt and uncle’s.  Without actually seeing any of the streets or neighbourhoods through which I walked.

I wish—

But I seem to have come full circle back to where I began.  And this entry has already reached practically novel-length proportions.  My fingers are dreadfully cramped from holding the pen for so long.

Lance called at the house today.

I suppose it was futile to hope that he would not, even after the note I left for him.  I sent word through Rose to tell him that I was not at home.

Which was cowardly, but I could not face the thought of having to send him away from me in person.

Gwenevere Dalton called to see me today.  I did
not
send Rose to tell her that I was not at home.  In part it was a kind of penance for having been too cowardly to see Lance yesterday.  And in part … in part I wanted to hear anything she could tell me of Lance.  It was rather like the impulse to keep tonguing a sore tooth, to see whether it still hurts. I wanted any news of him, however painful the hearing might be. 

Gwen was wearing a grey bombazine morning dress, with sleeves slashed with black velvet and a high, ruffled collar of white lace.  She gave me a hard look as I came into the drawing room, and she was silent for quite a half minute.  And then she said, “Well.  I came here with the firm intention of chewing your ears off.  But you look very nearly as miserable as my brother does.”

I swallowed, as half a dozen questions seemed all at once to jostle for position as uppermost in my mind.  I settled on, “What … what has Lance told you?”

“Very little.”  Gwen picked up a china ornament from the mantel and then set it down again.  “Save that you do not wish to see him again.  Lance is … he is very private, in many ways.  He never makes a public show of his feelings.  But I could see that he was reproaching himself for something.” 

That made my chest ache—the thought that Lance was thinking it was
his
fault that I had refused to see him.  That I was angry or affronted by what he had said in his lodging room.  I felt my legs fold under me, and without quite meaning to, I sat down hard on the edge of the sofa.  “Please—”  I looked up at Gwen.  “I know I am scarcely in a position to ask you for favours.  But will you please tell your brother that I am not offended or … or angry, at all, about what he said to me.  He must not think that.  He has been nothing but gentlemanly in every way.  That I cannot see him again—that fault is all, all mine.”

Gwen gave me another hard look.  And then she came to sit down in the chair opposite mine.  “Look here, Kitty—I hope I may call you Kitty?  Please, won’t you tell me what has happened?  My brother has fallen in love with you.  Not that he has said as much directly, but he is my brother, after all.  I can read what he feels—especially when it is clear on his face every time he speaks your name.  And you care for him, as well.  Just by looking at you, that much is plain.  So what is to stop the two of you telling
each other
how you feel?”  She frowned at me.  “You haven’t a secret case of leprosy, have you?  Or a husband locked away in an asylum for the insane?”

That made me laugh, a little—even if the laugh felt on the edge of crying.  “No leprosy or insane husbands.  Nothing so dramatic.”  I swallowed against the sharp ache in my throat.  “But all the same, your brother and I … it is impossible.  He may think that he has fallen in love with me.  But he does not know me.  Not really.  If he truly knew who I am, I promise you, he would not care for me at all.”

I was afraid Gwen would press me to explain more fully.  But she did not.  She only continued to study me, her head a little on one side.  And then she said, “Very well.  I suppose I must bid you good morning, then.”

It had been painful to see her, painful to hold this conversation.  And yet it was painful to see her go so abruptly, as well.  I got to my feet, and when I could trust my voice to hold steady, I said, “Thank you for calling.  And you will”—I swallowed again—“you will tell your brother what I said?”

“I will tell him.”  Gwen’s voice was soft now, gentle.  “I promise.”

“Thank you.”  I could not stop myself from asking, “And your brother—he is … he is well, I hope?  I mean, he is not ill … or … indisposed in any way?”

Gwen gave me a puzzled look.  Which means, I suppose, that Lance never told her about the gunshot wound.  But it must also mean that he is recovering and that the wound has not turned poisonous, if he was able to conceal it from his sister.

Gwen rose and said, “Yes.  Physically, he seemed perfectly well.”

“Oh.  Well, good.”  I could hear how flat the words sounded, but I could not think of anything else to say.  “I—  Good-bye, then.”

Gwen ignored my outstretched hand, though, and pulled me into a quick, hard hug.  “Oh, this is by no means good-bye.  If I am to be denied the pleasure of gaining you for a sister, I am determined to keep you for a friend.  I will see you again—and soon.” 

I went to see Jane today.  I have been wishing to go ever since Georgiana told me she was concerned for Jane’s health.  But I could not face seeing her yesterday, not when I felt as though the whole of my last encounter with Lance must be printed across my face for all to read.  And I knew Georgiana would send for me if there were any serious cause for concern.

Perhaps it is not serious.  But I
am
concerned.  Mary was already there with Jane when I arrived.  We came separately because I had to wait until I had settled Susanna down for her morning nap.  Georgiana was downstairs playing with Amelia, and Mary was reading aloud to Jane.  And I saw at once, as soon as I came into the room, that just as Georgiana said, Jane does look tired and pale, as though she has not been sleeping well.

Mary broke off reading as I entered—I was correct: the book she had chosen really was an incredibly dull-looking volume of sermons—and I told her that she ought to take the rest of the afternoon for herself, that I would sit with Jane.  It was depressingly easy to convince her to abandon her self-imposed duty.  Meaning that she was very likely going to scheme up a way of seeing Lord Henry the moment she walked out the door.  But at that moment, I scarcely cared; I wanted too much to speak with Jane alone.

Of course, in true Jane-like fashion, she brushed aside my questions and concern and asked about me, instead, her eyes searching my face.  “Are you sure you are quite well, Kitty?  You look so … so sad, somehow.”  And then Jane’s expression took on a strange, almost frighteningly remote look, and she said, “You were always so happy, even as a baby.  I remember sneaking up on tiptoe so that I could peek at you in your cradle—I was six, and mother had said she would give me a fearful scolding if I woke you.  But you weren’t asleep at all, and you waved your little hands at me and laughed …”

Jane’s voice trailed away, and I felt a cold, crawling worry wriggle its way all up and down my spine.  It was not so much Jane’s words themselves as the
way
she spoke them.  So detached and remote, as though she were drifting away from me.  It reminded me of my last visit to my grandmother—my mother’s mother—just before she died.   The physician had come and said she had only a very little time.  So all of us sisters were called in to see her, one at a time, so that we might kiss her cheek and tell her good-bye.  We went in order of ages, so that when I was called in, she had already seen Jane, Elizabeth, and Mary—and she was so tired that all she could do was to feebly pat my hand and say in a dreamy, far-off way that I was ‘a good little girl’.

I had not intended to tell Jane of our scheme for getting her necklace back.  But I was too frightened to stop myself.  I took Jane’s hand and said, “If it is Mrs. Hurst you are worrying about, please try not to.  Georgiana and I have been … speaking with her, and we have every hope that we will succeed in persuading her to return Charles’s mother’s jewels.”